Page 50 of Cursed Shadows 3

But if he’s impatient about waiting for us, he doesn’t show it. His grin dazzles like moonlight. “I’ve never seen free humans before,” he says. “Can we eat them?”

Fleetingly, I wonder if he’s got a little wild fae somewhere in his bloodline.

Dare tucks a folded knife into his boot. The wolfish grin he flashes seems more deadly than that serrated blade. “Seduce them?”

I think it might be a better fate to be eaten by Ridge than seduced by Dare. I almost let the tease fall from my lips, but before I can say anything at all, the carriage skids over gravel and dirt, then the punishing sound of hooves smacking the ground goes off into the distance.

Daxeel slips away from Aleana as she downs the rest of the honeywine.

I eye the empty bottle with slitted eyes.

My jaw only clenches when she tosses it aside. I watch it roll over the dewy blades of grass, flattening each one until it stops with a sway.

Eamon claps his hands together and calls out, “This way!”

Movement ripples over us, and I’m acutely aware of Daxeel silently prowling behind me, some distance back, but a shadow all the same.

Ahead, the teasing purr of Dare’s voice moves like snakes over grass, “You want to hold my hand?”

I trace his gaze to Aleana.

Arms spread out as she side-steps the muddier patches of pearlescent white grass. “You can hold this,” she snaps and flips him off. The light of the grass reflects off her humanized fingernail, and it blunts the gesture. “I’m not scared.”

Dare grins a dazzling sight. “Who said it was for your benefit?”

Her shoulders jerk with a scoff.

Eamon stops ahead once he reaches the edge of a slight mushroom circle, the sort of mushrooms that are blackened with poison and drooped with age—and I know what it is without a moment’s hesitation.

This bridge is unlike the ones I’ve taken before.

I have slipped my way through holes in tree trunks, and a handful of times gotten a good rash up my backside to show for it, so of course my face crumples into a scowl at the sheereaseof this mushroom circle at the edge of a mossy boulder.

Seems he is more familiar with the gentler bridges.

“Step in, one at a time,” he tells us, and I have half a mind to stomp these mushrooms dead. “When you land on the other side, make way—someone is right behind you.”

Ridge doesn’t need telling twice. He’s first to move for the circle.

I shout for him. “Wait! I need to glamour you first.”

He angles his pointed chin my way, the pinkish hue of his soft hair gleaming as bright as the glitter skirt Aleana wears. He hums a curt sound of understanding, but not too thrilled, then moves for me.

“Dax,” Eamon calls his cousin for the mushroom circle.

Daxeel looks over his shoulder.

He frowns on me for a moment before his gaze drops to the thin strap that has fallen over my shoulder.

He blinks as if to tug out of a trance, then he’s prowling for the circle.

I don’t watch him go through the bridge.

I focus my attention on glamouring Ridge’s hair into a sawdust shade, his lilac eyes into a murky grey: I soften the glisten of his marble complexion, then get to work on those fangs of his.

But there’s little I can do about the ancient blouse he’s chosen to wear, strung together at the collar, and the leather trousers that glimmer down to his boots like a mud river.

By the time I’m done, everyone but me, Ridge and Eamon are on the other side.

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